Podcast about people who came out nowhere

Was local government designed by a maniac who hated the residents?

In response to gun violence, two upstate New York sheriffs call for more people to walk around with guns. Let me explain why I think people who are charged with protecting public safety would advocate something that will make everyone more unsafe. "Responsible" offices does not mean "rational" policies. Not at all. Not here anyway.

Phlogiston Podcast and other audio links

I have a new podcast: here.

My old audio uploads are still here. This includes audio of meetings with the DA, complete, etc. Lots of raw audio.

You can here many years of audio here. Here is an album that is not in that list from 2005.

Here is where I will and have posted info on the book I'm doing about Pazzis Sureda.

entry by Ollie

viola growling

lotta dancing

No Dinosaur Courts: amendment to end life time tenure of federal judges

Imagine a supreme court appointed by Woodrow Wilson, a confirmed racist. That is something we should imagine because such a gap between the court and the society at large is inevitable. Democracy demands we limit the terms of federal judges. We can do it now with a constitutional amendment or we can wait until the supreme court become intolerable and has to be undermined more completely in another way. We need to tame the court to save it.

diamonds on the sidewalk

The propensity in the human mind to not see diamonds on the sidewalk where a diamond should not be, is not supposed to be, and on the rare occasion when it is there, right where is is not supposed to be, so, obviously, is are not there... and it gets kicked to the curb. Happens every day.

le pen v mujica

Trump is a nativist, unpredictable, egomaniac wild card, more like Le Pen than anyone in American history. Sanders maybe a bit like Pepe Mujica of Uruguay.

by Ollie

Data on police: a great step to reform

beethoven summer 2015

Frogs out!

They are here!

Every year I note the night the peepers, frogs, come out. It's a very clear marker of spring, as all the frogs come out at once -- once one male frog starts singing for a mate, the others come right out and join in so it goes from quiet one night to loud the next night. It is loud right now.

Although it seems like this has been an endless winter, in fact, the frogs came out later last year. 

Here are 8 years of first nights.

2015: April 3
2014: April 6
2013: March 30
2012: March 12
2011: March 17
2010: March 19
2009: March 27
2008: April 1

Ginsberg's Project: it doesn't fit

Below (click "read more") is the short version of all that is wrong with this project. Here is the more detailed version.

Free land, free money, variances that allow the company to flaunt the zoning laws: this deal is bad and there is a meeting tonight.

Then, another: Wednesday, September 17, at the Ghent firehouse at 10 AM. Very important meeting for all Columbia County residents.

Also, I never did blog the payroll meeting but this article is damn good.

Let your voice be heard at both. Read more.

Crony Capitalism at its Worst

Below I offer more details on this sorry Ginsberg deal. Here is the shorter version. Meeting tonight.

Wednesday, Sept. 10th at 7pm at Ghent Town Hall

"PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT the Zoning Board of Appeals of the Town of Ghent will hold a regular meeting on 9/10/2014 at 7pm at the Town Hall, 2306 Route 66, Ghent, NY at which time the applications by Ginsberg/Crawford & Associates for variances/code interpretation will continue to be reviewed."

Report from the Columbia Paper from the last ZBA meeting "Ghent Residents give freezer plan frosty critique"

public trust?

From the audit:

Payroll Department on November 14, 2013 via email identifying 37 leave days to be deducted from the resigning attorney’s accruals, the email was not opened before the separation payment was issued on November 21, 2013. 

It should be noted that we found the discrepancies in this department because it was the only department that had sufficient records to test. Such records consisted of leave request forms and an electronic calendar that documented daily absences. 

The public trust is endangered when records of leave time earned and used are not maintained and separation payments made are not fully supported. 

What do 26 hour days do to public trust? How about 5 guys maintaining private law offices with staff while simultaneously claiming to be present at 401 State Street for years when they don't have desks at 401 State and never went there?

Grattan is obliged by law to deal with this by law and can't say "whoops!." If crimes were committed, hundreds of felonies for years by many people, the DA has an obligation to prosecute and the state police have an obligation to arrest.

comptroller audit meeting tomorrow

Special meeting of BOS 9/4/14, 5:30pm, to review Columbia County Payroll Audit

 NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF ... 2014 at 5:30 pm in the Board of Supervisors Chambers located at 401 State Street, ...

Here is an interesting passage from the audit:

an amendment

I get a lot of fundraising emails about overturning the Citizen's United decision that gutted election laws and gave free speech rights to corporations. I followed the most recent fundraising email here. Here is another. One more here. Last one to prove there are a lot.

comptroller article in the Register Star

http://www.registerstar.com/news/article_e20a0f74-2bf6-11e4-adce-001a4bcf887a.html#user-comment-area

The thing is, it's way more than $40,000, as that is only for 18 months including the time after the story ran on the front page of the Albany Times Union.

whitewash

I no sooner wrote this abstract piece about the police when Sam Pratt told me to read this. I'm upset. It's a whitewash.

I'm going to get a copy of the report and every document I can pertaining to the production of this report. If you steal a million dollars it's not "oh well, we'll try to do better next time."

DiNapoli in there for the cronies. Democrats and Republicans united in corruption.

the police

The protests and unrest and police misconduct in Ferguson, Missouri makes me think about policing generally. Here are my thoughts:

schneiderman: columbia county is worse

http://ag.ny.gov/press-release/ag-schneiderman-announces-arrest-and-four-count-indictment-broome-county-attorney-john

This is peanuts compared to Sleepergate. Why not Columbia County?

july 4, 1776, pluses and minuses

American Independence may in part be something to celebrate. If Edmund Burke, the arch conservative, Ben Franklin, the arch moderate, and Tom Paine, the arch radical, could all agree on the need for the Americans to break away from the British, then they must have a point. No doubt, the English were heavy handed. True, fundamentally, the English did seem to have a point that the American should pay at least a fraction of the taxes that the people back in England had to pay in order to cover the costs of defending the colonies from the French and Indians. Still, the war was justified due to the lack of compromise on the English side.

But was American independence good or bad?  It's hardly a slam dunk either way. Let's think about a few things:

second home owners: Columbia County's main industry

Sam Pratt has a story up about Ginsberg getting 33 acres for free from Columbia County. I was having trouble getting on his blog a few minutes ago but it should be back up soon.